


mothership

by bokutoma



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aromantic Asexual Pidge | Katie Holt, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), College AU, Eating Disorders, Gay Keith (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, M/M, Sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, What's new, and so tries to fill the void with meaningless sex, but everyone is having a rough time, except the problem is that he has no self worth, fuck it up matt bb, hunk has an eating disorder, i like sad stuff, idk that will probs never be relevant but i love aroace pidge so fuck you, it's okay though they still kick ass, lance has a problem, matt is super fucking flamboyantly gay, nobody is happy, one day, pidge has anger issues, self harm?? not necessarily in the typical fashion either, sue me, they will be though, thought of suicide, um, we'll probably be good though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-16 22:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12351750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: keith is a recluse, a shut in. they tell him he's meant for more than this, meant for more than what he's making of himself. shiro and pidge tell him that he can be anything he wants to be. keith just wants to be dead.shiro is suffering from ptsd after an accident six months ago that left him with a prosthetic arm and a head full of scrambled memories, but he has to get it together and stay strong for keith.lance is not worth anything. he knows that, and so does every person who's slept with him and tossed him aside like garbage the morning after. somehow, he only feels close to normal around keith. too bad keith hates him.pidge gunderson (or katie holt, or somewhere in between) is not a girl. somehow, however, everyone keeps treating them as such, and they really can't fucking stand it anymore. someone is going to pay.hunk, despite his big personality, is somehow only known for his big stomach. he's never been well liked, never been fawned over like lance. maybe if he just...stopped eating, people would like him more.allura is barely recovered from her first relapse back to depression, coran's anxiety is through the roof, and matt? he's just doing his goddamn best to keep them all together.





	mothership

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is loosely based on some of the songs from dance gavin dance's album mothership. it's a good album. good for screaming.
> 
> have fun
> 
> also, if u wanna guess the six songs i have picked for this?? each song matches a member of voltron (og voltron) perfectly, and one is made to match klance

keith woke up to a bright bedroom and a steaming mug of green tea on his nightstand. this was mildly concerning, mostly because he hadn't opened his curtains in 73 hours, and he hadn't been awake for the last 32 or so. could it be a murderer that was trying to poison him with a nice cup of tea? he took a sip and sighed, disappointed. no poison, so it was probably shiro.

of all the days to wake up, his body had to pick one when his nagging older brother was here.

damn. well, there was no helping it now. it would be better to deal with him now and sleep after than make shiro wake him up by force. slowly, each individual joint working its way up to full motion, he sat up, his blankets knocked askew by the motion. he couldn't bring himself to care. he reached over and grabbed the mug, numb to the burning sensation that he was sure would be there if he had any care for his body. he took a sip, this time wincing as the searing liquid burned the roof of his mouth. shiro had over brewed it, a mistake he wasn't often prone to making. interesting.

interesting, but not interesting enough to ruminate any further on. after all, time was precious, despite how much of it he wasted on a daily basis. he had much better things to be thinking about, like trying  _not_ to think about how angry his lab partner (his mind, stubborn as always and against him like everything else, begged to put a name to that vague description, but, hatred suffusing his veins, he vehemently shoved it back down.) would be. after all, he could always just...do the fucking work himself?

not that  _keith_ ever did any of the work, but that was beside the point.

this was a safer path to ruminate on, so he let his thoughts roam. both he and his partner never did any work, yet somehow, without fail, he always turned up with a completed lab report, essay, or whatever else the professor had asked for that day. he saw the marks that his partner got on early quizzes in a chapter, and they were hellishly low. how the hell had he managed to pull through and give them both top marks after every single assignment remained a baffling mystery to him.

a knock on the door roused him from his thoughts, and he grunted in acknowledgement. The door swung open gently, as though moving slower could assuage any irritated feelings before they could crop up. 

newsflash, shiro, it couldn't.

"hey, bud," the elder said, so patently  _shiro_ that it was somewhat revolting. "how's the tea?"

"it's alright. how's breaking and entering into your brother's apartment and loitering next to his unconscious body going?"

shiro grinned, unflappable as always. "it's alright."

 _god,_ sometimes he couldn't stand how utterly poised and ready his brother was for just about anything. he seethed silently as he grabbed the mug again, maintaining furious eye contact over it as he took another sip and tried not to sigh as it relaxed his tensed muscles.

"anyway," shiro said. "take a look at this picture of matt i managed to take last night."

all revenge plots against his brother were immediately discarded as keith looked at shiro's phone. the scene was perfect; pidge had a furious look of concentration on their face as they stared at what he assumed to be the tv, controller in hand, as a blurry matt fell down from his perch on the armrest of the couch, a moment before keith was sure that he had hit pidge.

"i call it  _last moment of peace,_ by takashi shirogane. how does that sound?"

"stupid." but a hint of a smile was playing at keith's lips now, and as he lifted his gaze to judge shiro's expression, he noted a sparkle of victory in the man's gaze.  _stupid._

"anyway, pidge and matt want to host a party, and, before you groan-"

keith groaned.

shiro's eyes narrowed, but he pushed forward regardless. " _before you groan,_ pidge is going to be putting on cryptid documentaries. it's not a real party, more of a....smallish get together."

"and how many people constitutes  _smallish?"_

"eight."

keith took a second and counted up all the people he knows (which, if he was being honest, barely exceeded what he could count on his fingers) and groaned as he realized what that meant. "really, shiro? you can't expect me to come to a party with lance "i fuck everything that moves" mcclain."

"to be fair, he doesn't have sex with  _everything._ there's still you, for instance."

based on the slight grimace his scowl put on shiro's face, keith figured he looked pretty damn terrifying, or at least a little insane.

"i don't even want to know what you meant by that, so i'm going to pretend that you didn't just utter that sentence. instead, you can tell me why the hell you think putting lance "i'm so full of myself, i need another seat on the plane for my ego" mcclain and i in the same room is a good idea."

"keith, it's not technically a party. it's more of an "eat pizza and get shitfaced while watching cryptozoology films" gathering. besides, if it's only the eight of us, lance won't be flirting. he'll be  _joking,_ and it will be fun and happy and might get you to stop looking like you did in seventh grade."

keith looked down at his black avenged sevenfold shirt and matching black pajama pants, looked back at shiro in his skinny jeans and gray imagine dragons shirt, probably stolen from either matt or allura's closet, and conceded that maybe he had a point.

"fine, shiro, but you owe me."

shiro gave a jaunty salute as he rose to leave. "not until you make up for the billion times i had to sweet talk you out of being dress coded for that exact shirt that you're wearing."

again, keith had to concede that maybe he had a point.

* * *

as the lock of his younger brother's apartment door clicked shut behind him, shiro immediately felt his one good, one  _human_ hand begin to shake. 

 _not here,_ he thought, even as the tides threatened to drag him under into oppressive pain and memories.  _just wait until you get to the car._ but his legs were heavy, weighed down with depression and hurt and an ache in his shoulder that only seemed to intensify by the minute.  _you can do that, yeah? you've got this, takashi._ his inner voice had become that of his mother's, and it soothed him enough that he could press on until he reached the stairwell. he took them down two at a time, heart seizing in desperation to get somewhere safe.  _you can do this, takashi. you're brave and strong and oh, my boy, THAT'S MY_ BOY!

suddenly his mother's voice wasn't quite as comforting, and he tripped down the final set of stairs, landing on his hands  _(hand)_ and knees at the landing. she was still screaming in his head, and the lack of sting on one of his palms made him dizzyingly nauseous. he gagged, then heaved himself up, limbs pinwheeling in his rush to be somewhere,  _anywhere_ that was safe.

_takashi! takashi! that's my boy, sir, you don't understand he was saving her life! takashi, takashi! TAKASHI! HELP HIM, OH GOD HELP HIM HE'S DYING THAT'S MY BOY!!_

and then he was in his car, and he crawled into the backseat and cried and cried and dug the nails of his left hand into his palm and mourned the fact that he would never feel the same stinging sensation in his other hand. he mourned the fact that keith would have to live with a crippled husk of a brother. he mourned that he would never be the takashi shirogane that he used to be.

he cried until he had nothing left to give, and then he was reborn.

it was a tiring thing, being reborn every day, but it was necessary if he was going to live for keith. it was a tiring thing, living for keith, but it was necessary if he was going to mean anything.

he had to mean something. he hadn't saved the girl, after all.

he pushed himself up and crawled back to the driver's seat, grounding himself with the feeling of his foot against the pedal.  _key in the ignition, shirogane._

the car roared to life, and shiro peeled out of the parking lot, dialing matt as he did so. 

"mm-yello?"

against his will (or the will of the depression that gripped him), he cracked a smile. matt was never normal, and it was nothing short of refreshing. "keith is in, holt. we've got our personal cryptid in as well."

"yes!" matt shouted around something in his mouth. whether it was a bottle of wine or food or something else entirely, shiro really didn't want to know. "pidge was gonna flip the fuck out if keeks didn't show. they haven't seen him in so long. thanks for getting the bat out of the cave and the pigeon out of my hair, dude."

"no problem, man." with matt, shiro felt...normal.

"see you and your hot ass in a couple hours?"

"yeah."

"oh! bring us a couple cases of blue moon while you're out?"

"only half of us can legally drink."

"come on, losergane! let them have some fun."

the smile was now a full on grin. "alright, holt. see you in a couple."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry, shiro


End file.
